Deflection
Berend wakes up from the sort of dreamless, black unconsciousness he cultivated on long marches as a young man. As much as the discoveries of last night—indeed, of the last few days—unsettled him, his body needed sleep, and would get it however it could.
He picks himself up and goes to the door of his room. On the floor outside is a tray, with a dish of still-cold butter and another with several pieces of hearty brown bread. An envelope sits between the plates. Berend’s other clothes, now clean of the dust and rot of the manor and its ghost, lie in a neatly folded stack to one side.
He takes everything inside and sets the clothes on the bed and the tray on the small, three-legged table, and picks up the envelope. It’s quality paper, fine and smooth, and smells faintly of perfume.
The note inside, written in a familiar, elegant hand, reads:
Mr. Horst,
I hope this message finds you well. I understand you are a busy man, but should you find yourself available this evening, I would welcome the pleasure of your company.
Lady Breckenridge
He hasn’t been to call on the widow Breckenridge yet, and he’s been in Mondirra for what, two days now? Three? The long nights have made it difficult to keep track. The note is polite, and she’s neglected none of the niceties, but its brevity suggests she’s annoyed with him.
He’ll have to make it up to her. He refolds the paper, feeling its weight and exquisite grain between his fingers, and takes one more inhale of the perfume before returning it to its envelope. It’s a distinctive scent, one that brings to mind the last evening he spent in Mrs. Breckenridge’s company; it was undoubtedly chosen on purpose.
There will be time to think about that later. For now, Berend has work to do, and if he starts early, he’ll be able to join her for dinner. He gets dressed, holstering his pistol, and eats his breakfast. By the time he leaves the Fox and Dove, it’s an hour after sunrise.
He’s thankful to have his heavy cloak back, as well as his hat. The day is bright and the wind is crisp. It’s the sort of day that belies the horrors he’s taken upon himself to investigate—the streets in this district are clean, and the rooftops shine in the sun. Behind them, in the distance, the domes of the Temple District glisten. Mondirra is a beautiful city, some of the time.
It’s with some reluctance that he turns toward the Shell District. Today will be for finding witnesses. There have to be some, in some corner of the slums he hasn’t searched yet; it’s highly improbable that anyone has been able to make a nobleman’s entire coach disappear without causing some sort of magical explosion, so someone will have seen something.
He considers returning to the blue field to fetch Isabel. She’d be useful if he encounters anything unnatural, and she should be informed—he regrets not being able to tell her more about the manor and Lucian Warder’s strange device, but a contract is a contract.
In the end, he heads off to the Shell District alone. Isabel is too noticeable in her uniform, and Berend has the distinct impression that convincing her to wear something else would be more trouble than it’s worth.
Gleaming sunlight does little to improve the appearance of the slums. Berend does not enter the spiral plaza, but he notes that the blood-hued growths are mostly gone now from its perimeter. Only a reddish stain on the clapboards remains. Nothing magical is permanent, despite what the old stories say.
He finds Constable Mulhy, bleary-eyed and yawning, a short distance from the plaza.
“Oh, it’s you,” the young man says. “Did you find anything?”
“I did. I’d like to inform your superior, if you wouldn’t mind,” Berend tells him.
Mulhy leads him to a squat, ugly building south of the plaza. The two first-story windows facing the street are covered in a grid of iron bars, and the door has been reinforced, moving heavily and reluctantly as Mulhy pushes it open.
It’s shift change for the Shell District constabulary, and the interior of the building is embroiled in a slow-moving chaos. Those just arriving drink sludgy coffee from a battered kettle, while those of Mulhy’s cohort drag their feet out the door.
Mulhy navigates his way around the press of bodies to a back room, Berend in tow. Behind a door that hangs crookedly like a loose tooth is a man at a desk, mostly obscured by the stacks of ledgers and loose papers around him. His dark, bald head reflects a spot of sun from the high window at his back.
He looks up as Mulhy and Berend approach his desk, and then gets to his feet. He’s tall and broad, and his beard is thick, almost as though it’s making up for the lack of hair on the top of his head. “Constable,” he says, his voice low and gravelly. “Report?”
“This is the man I told you about, Captain,” says Mulhy.
Berend takes off his hat and bows. “Berend Horst, at your service.”
“Ah, yes,” the captain says. “Thank you, Constable.”
Mulhy bows and exits the room, looking already half asleep on his feet.
The captain gestures to a chair facing the desk. “Please, sit. I am Captain Irons, temporarily of the Shell District. Mulhy told me you were searching for Sterry the Bastard. Did you find him?”
“I did,” says Berend, “in a seedy brothel not far from here, though I’m sure he’s cleared out and won’t be seen there again anytime soon. The man whose body was found in your district was a friend of mine. I’ve been looking for any information that might be of use.”
Irons nods. “And did Sterry give you anything helpful?”
“He showed me—and the Sentinel of Ondir who was with me—a warehouse at the border of West Gate. There was evidence that a two-horse carriage of the sort used to travel in comfort had been there recently. There were also rope fibers, sealing wax, and quite a bit of blood, as well as two bodies that had been buried inside for some time.”
“I see.” Irons’ bushy brows draw together in a frown. “Thank you for reporting this. I’ll have a few officers secure the location and recover the evidence.”
“There is some magic involved,” Berend continues. “Besides what happened in the plaza, there’s some kind of trick that is concealing the murderer’s movements. I’m searching for any sign that might have been overlooked.”
Irons steeples his fingers together in front of his impressive beard. “Mr. Horst, I understand that there is little I can do to stop you from your investigation. We are stretched thinly enough here as it is, and our ability to coordinate with other districts is limited. So, I only ask that you observe the proper channels and report everything you find to the constabularies.”
“As far as I am able, I will,” Berend agrees. “To that end, I’ll mention that the murderer impersonated a priest of Alcos to gain access to the lighthouse two nights ago. It might be worth keeping a look out.”
They exchange a few more pleasantries before Berend is free to go. He is left with the distinct impression that Captain Irons, while earnestly well-intentioned and capable in his own right, has no idea what to do with a crime involving magic.
Berend isn’t much better off, if he’s honest. He almost wishes he had brought Isabel along. The captain’s determined professionalism isn’t quite as reassuring as Isabel’s calm acceptance of each new, terrible discovery as normal and expected. Though the latter does make Berend feel as though he is losing his mind, at least he won’t be alone in his madness.
Well. The day isn’t getting any younger, and neither is Berend, and he has an appointment this evening. He sets out again toward the warehouse. Soon after, he notices four uniformed constables heading in the same direction.
He concocts a story of a young cousin out for a joy ride in his father’s coach and walks past the warehouse in question and into the West Gate, asking the workers passing through for help. They tell him they’ve seen nothing, some apologetically, most with a brusque dismissal. As the sun nears its noontime height, a pair of older men driving an ox cart full of lumber claim to have heard horses between the Temple District and the West Gate two nights past. It isn’t much, but Berend heads off toward the shining domes.
At a communal kitchen run by low-ranking priestesses of Isra in their drab green robes, Berend meets a group of elderly vagabonds who recognize the warehouse as he describes it.
The first man eyes him with suspicion, but tells him, “It was empty for a long time. We used to stay there sometimes, but when Mabel and Willes took up there, they chased everyone else away. Haven’t been back since.”
Berend worries he found Mabel and Willes last night, buried under the warehouse floor.
He considers continuing his ruse, but before he can speak, he is overcome by a sudden distaste for the lie. “I was a friend of Mikhail Ranseberg,” he says. “I’m trying to find out who killed him.”
A woman, her braids tied in colorful rags, shakes her head. “We thought the corpse-men had got him, until his bits turned up in the Shell District.”
“The corpse-men?” Berend asks.
“They sell bodies to the university, for the…the dissections,” says the first man. “We walk in groups to be safe from them.”
Another man interjects, “I knew Mikhail. I told him to stay close by, but he wandered—chased things that weren’t there.”
That news is painful. The last time Berend saw him, Mikhail could carry on a conversation and more or less look after himself, depending on whether he had the money. It’s hard to hear that he’d deteriorated so much in his last days.
The vagabonds have little else to tell him, and the green-clad sisters are giving him dubious looks, so Berend gives a few coins to the former and leaves a few more in the latter’s collection dish by the door, and leaves the kitchen.
The Temple District’s traffic is, as a rule, solemn and well-dressed. They mill around with slow, contemplative purpose, pausing at the monuments along the road up the hill to the great temples with the appropriate gravity. Berend wonders how much of it is performed for the benefit of fellow pilgrims, and how much is simple habit. He supposes the distinction isn’t important.
As he adjusts his hat against the sun’s current angle, he notices something out of place. A man in riding leathers, his age difficult to determine for the ridged scar that stretches from the corner of his mouth almost to his left ear, stands on the other side of the street, as still as one of the marble statues towering above him. But for the scar, he is otherwise indistinct, with the shaggy dark hair and sallow skin common among the country folk.
Is this one of Sterry’s men, keeping an eye on me? Berend asks himself. Or someone else? He hasn’t exactly been secretive about his investigation. There might be any number of forces intending to observe or impede him.
In any case, it will do him no good to have a tail, especially when it comes time to return to the Fox and Dove or pay Lady Breckenridge a visit.
He sets off at a brisk but casual pace toward the West Gate. He’ll take a few random turns, make sure the strange man is indeed following him, and try to lose him among the winding alleyways. If nothing else, the four constables Captain Irons sent to the abandoned warehouse should be enough to dissuade even the most persistent of shadows.
At the edge of the Temple District, he takes his first turn. A second follows after a block of large warehouses. He chances a look over his shoulder after the third turn, and sees no sign of the man—there are only laborers here, too busy to spare him more than a glance. He faces forward and continues, intending to make his way directly to where the constables would be collecting the evidence from last night.
About half an hour later, Berend finds himself facing the red-stained edge of the Shell District plaza.
It’s farther south and not nearly as far west as he thought he was going. He gives a sharp shake of his head, as if that will clear away the sight and place him where he intended to be, but the leaning shanties and dirty stone tiles remain.
Berend knows his sense of direction is good. He’s found his way in the utter darkness of the southern hills, finding friendly and enemy encampments with no more than the compass heading he had taken when leaving his company’s camp. Even since the Sons were disbanded, he hasn’t wanted for practice. In broad daylight, inside the city, it should have been impossible for him to get himself turned around, even with as little sleep as he has been getting over the past few nights. He has no memory of turning southward since he lost sight of the scarred man.
Panic surges in his chest, but he bites it back. I’m not going mad, he tells himself.
When he had crossed from the West Gate into the Temple District earlier, he had been farther north than the abandoned warehouse. Attempting to cross back, three or four streets south, had put him here.
He doesn’t know anything about magic. What he does know is this: it would take deliberate intent to confuse a Son of Galaser’s ability to navigate. There is something in the West Gate that someone doesn’t want him to find.
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